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No More Chicken With High Antibiotic Content?

Iran Veterinary Organization plans to launch a scheme that would potentially discontinue the supply of chicken with high levels of antibiotics.

According to Mehdi Khalaj, the head of IVO, the scheme, which is to be launched in two weeks, entails the examination of chicken sent to slaughterhouses by technical and lab experts, upon which chicken with high levels of antibiotics will be returned to farms until the level reaches normal standards, the Persian daily Iran reported.

Yet, Payam Mohebbi, the head of Iran Veterinary Society, believes the project will not be successful since the technical and lab experts are financially dependent on chicken slaughterhouses and will not act against them.

The provinces of South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi, Fars and Gilan are the main producers of antibiotic-free chicken in Iran.

About 272 tons of chicken with no antibiotics used in their breeding have been produced in South Khorasan Province in northeast Iran so far in the current Iranian year (started March 21), director general of South Khorasan Veterinary Organization, said in August.

“The number of antibiotic-free chicken production units in the province has increased from 3 to 28 over the past three years,” he said.